Federal officials have begun working with the state of Arizona to implement an agreement reached with the Hopi tribe nearly 30 years ago. It was what tribal officials described as a historic day.
Government lawyers filed a condemnation document Friday seeking to transfer dozens of square miles of state land to a trust for the Hopi Nation. The tribe will pay nearly $4 million in compensation to the state for more than 80 square kilometers (31 square miles) of land near Winslow.
This could be the first to transfer more land to a trust, helping eliminate the checkerboard of ownership that characterizes much of the land the tribe uses for ranching in northeastern Arizona.
Friday’s filing resulted from the passage of the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Resolution Act of 1996. The bill ratified an agreement between the Hopi Nation and the federal government that set the terms for holding land in trust for the tribe.
The dispute over land in northeastern Arizona was bitter, pitting the Hopi and Navajo against each other for generations. The federal government failed in its attempts to get the tribes to share their land, and after years of escalating conflict, Congress in 1974 divided the region and ordered tribal members to leave each other’s reservations.
The resulting border meant that the Navajo Nation, the largest reservation in the United States at 27,000 square miles, surrounded the 2,500 square mile Hopi Reservation.
Since settlement in 1996, the Hopi tribe has sought to purchase private land and place nearby state lands in trust to consolidate properties for the benefit of the tribe.
There have been many obstacles along the way, including in 2018 when the tribe sought support from local governments in northern Arizona to back a proposed land transfer south of the busy Interstate 40 corridor. These efforts were thwarted by the inclusion of national forests in the Flagstaff area.
Hopi President Tim Nuvangyaoma said in a statement Friday he thanked everyone who worked to make the accusations a reality and said the timing of this historic moment was appropriate.
“In Hopi, it is time to celebrate the Soyalang ceremony, which marks the beginning of the new year and revitalizes life,” he said.
Gov. Katie Hobbs, who first visited the Hopi Reservation in 2023, acknowledged that the tribe has been fighting for their rights for decades and that politicians in the past have refused to listen to the voices of tribal communities.
“Every Arizonan deserves the opportunity to thrive and a place to call home, and this agreement brings us one step closer to making Arizona’s values a reality,” she said Friday.
Last November, the Navajo Nation signed a bond deed placing land near Flagstaff in trust as part of the federal government’s outstanding obligation to support tribal members who were forcibly removed as a result of the Navajo-Hopi conflict.
Navajo leaders are considering building a casino on newly acquired land and say such a project would provide significant economic benefits.
Giving the Hopi more land in trust holds the promise of greater economic opportunity. State lands near Winslow that are part of the condemnation application are interspersed with Hopi-owned land and have long been leased to the tribe for ranching and agricultural purposes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Federal officials said Friday’s filing was the first in a series of condemnation actions expected to ultimately result in the transfer of more than 170 square miles (440 square kilometers) of state land to a trust for the Hopi Tribe.
